Ceremony

Ceremony

I feel ancestral drums in my heartbeat,
and the wind sings in my ears a sacred pipe song. 
My feet tap to the rhythm of ceremonial dances. 
But where are the drums, the pipes,
where is the ceremony?

Where is the ceremony
to show I have learned to look outside myself,
to see my creator in the flower bursting through concrete,
or the music of the winged ones
from the throat of an awkward child? 

I strain to hear the grandmothers whisper soothing words
when impatience threatens my balance.  I crave the words of the grandfathers
to challenge me when I'm weak. 
But where have they gone,
grandmothers, the grandfathers?

If hell is our separation from God,
what do you call the absence of ceremony,
the stillness of the wind, the paralysis of dancing feet,
the silence of the drums,
or the noise that keeps us from hearing

the whispers of our ancestors?


SWPoet